A Joyful Countenance as a Natural Outcome but also Deliberate
At the end of the call service last week in Fort Wayne, President Harrison, with tongue firmly in cheek but not without teeth, admonished the candidates for the Office of the Holy Ministry to smile more often. I think it was a sound encouragement and advice.
The Gospel changes us. The command to rejoice in the Lord always should be taken literally. Being forgiven, having the peace that passes all understanding, and standing in fellowship with the Father through grace is more than a spiritual reality. It abides in our souls, to be sure, but it also lives and affects our minds and even our bodies. I understood President Harrison to be saying more than simply that we should put on a happy face and smile more. I am confident that what he meant was that the Gospel of Jesus Christ should permeate us, as leaven leavens the whole lump. To be sure, there are times to weep and to mourn, but even in those times, we are also to rejoice.
Rather than get into that I want to take President Harrison’s admonition rather literally for a moment, not simply in terms of smiling but of a deliberate embracing and effort toward a joyful countenance.
The idea that our faces reveal our hearts is an old one. The most succinct and oft-quoted aphorism of this is found in George Orwell’s final notebook from 1949. It reads: “At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.” There are many versions of the quote, some apocryphal, since that time and Orwell himself may have been influenced from earlier material. In any case, the gist of the idea is that consistently thinking ugly thoughts will lead to an ugly face and, at the same time, one who thinks good and noble things throughout his life will find it reflected in his face.
At first blush this seems both ridiculous and judgmental. To be sure, beauty as judged by the world and outward appearance, has been given to some very ugly minds. Case-in-point: Hollywood. But I think it is more complicated than ugliness and beauty. Luther suggests that there is some merit to the idea also. Commenting on Ecclesiastes 8:1b, “A man’s wisdom makes his face shine, And the sternness of his face is changed (NKJV), Luther writes:
"This passage can be understood in two ways. One way is actively, so that it means: “Wisdom illumines the face of the righteous man,” which is the same as: “Wisdom makes him a man of happy countenance.” On the other hand, hypocrites go about in sadness, as Christ says of the Pharisees in Matt. 6:16: “They disfigure their faces,” that is, they have a sour expression. A wise man, however, always goes about with a serene countenance, because he does what he can. The wicked man always has a hateful and cloudy countenance. This is therefore a kind of proverbial saying, as though he were saying: “One can readily tell by the eyes where there is a happy heart.” Wicked men almost always have a rumpled forehead; for as their heart is, so their face is. Secondly, the passage can be understood the same way in a passive sense, namely, that a man who has a happy face is also pleasant to others and makes others happy. His conduct is joyful and happy. In this way also this is a flourish in praise of wisdom." Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 15: Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Last Words of David, 2 Samuel 23:1-7, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 15 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 134–135.
The idea is not simply that ugly thoughts create an ugly face or beautiful thoughts create a beautiful face. Rather it is that a man’s face will reflect what is in his heart. A face in Hollywood that belongs to an ugly mind might be counted as visually pleasing but it could still reflect despair, arrogance, or false confidence. In a similar way a face that may be counted as ugly by men could reflect joy, peace, and gratitude. What comes to my mind in this regard are the joyful faces that I know personally of Christians who have Down Syndrome. They aren’t beautiful in a typical way but they are delightful to behold for the delight that is in them.
We certainly shouldn’t think that we can see into the hearts of men! We can’t do that fully even by their words and actions. It would be absolutely demonic and destructive if we tried to judge men’s hearts by their faces. But might we judge our own? Might we not discipline our hearts and minds toward gratitude for grace, joy in forgiveness, and confidence in the resurrection so that we “put on a happy face?” Might it not be a grand and useful witness to the world and a cure for many of our ailments? To be sure, this won’t bring back our dead loved ones or restore the money swindled from us or cure cancer. There are times when weeping and mourning are more than simply understandable or tolerable, justice and reverence often demand it. But could a cultivated joy based on God’s Word put those things into perspective so that even when hurting we are also rejoicing and even when we are weeping we are, at least part of the time, also smiling?